Ability Update: Shyvana

"If big changes for Shyvana seem out of left field, you’re not crazy. Compared to the champion updates you’re used to, we didn’t pick Shyvana to solve major issues that need huge time investments. Instead, she’s one of League’s first opportunistic updates: updates where a smaller amount of work can yield big improvements. While not entirely without issues (she’s had a tough year), Shyvana’s already a pretty cool champion - we wanted to make her better. As pre-season work wound down, we decided to take on that challenge.Half-Dragon, Half-Diver

Shyvana was created long before today’s champion class/sub-class framework. Within that framework, Shyvana’s closest to the Juggernauts: a durable and devastating group of champions who lack reliable ways to get to their targets. Of that group, Shyvana’s selling point is that Dragon’s Descent... gives her a reliable way to get to her target. Through this lens, her unique strength is that she periodically gets to ignore one of her weaknesses.

This is why Shyvana has such a hard time clawing her way back from a disadvantage. Ignoring weaknesses doesn’t help when you’re too behind to flex your strengths! It also gives number changes a short shelf life, since even slight meta shifts push her aggressively ahead or behind the rest of the pack.

That said, Shyvana isn’t fundamentally flawed. Even while ahead, her weaknesses are still pretty clear: once she ults into the enemy backline, she lacks both crowd control to shut down enemy kiting and sustain to outlast it. We felt a few carefully targeted changes would go a long way - hence this project!Kill It With Fireballs

We’ll start with Shyvana’s shiniest new toy: an exploding fireball. E - Flame Breath used to become a cone of damage in Dragon Form, which let Shyvana hit more things, provided enemies clumped up nicely for her. Most aren’t that accommodating, so we wanted to give Shyvana something she has more control over.

Instead of a cone, Dragon Form now gives Shyvana control over how far Flame Breath travels, exploding for bonus damage. The explosion leaves “scorched earth” that constantly marks enemies for Flame Breath’s on-hit proc. Basically, cast E at a distance for spicy fireball snipes, or cast it in melee range and claw face on whoever’s stuck in the blast zone.

E - Flame Breath

Shyvana unleashes a fireball that stops after hitting a champion. All enemies hit take 60/100/140/180/220 (+0.3 ability power) magic damage and are marked for 5 seconds.

Flame Breath’s on-hit damage against monsters is capped at 100 damage per hit.

Just Dragon Things

Looking toward R - Dragon’s Descent, we felt we could deliver a much more epic transformation. That means a bigger dragon and uninterruptible flight (think Malphite or Hecarim). We also swapped Dragon Form’s resistances for bonus health - while both are survivability stats, Juggernauts find more interesting ways of using health (Titanic Hydra, Sterak’s Gage, etc.) It also fills up a chunk of Shyvana’s HP bar, which is nice.

Of course, we had to trade a few things to get there. Beyond the loss of resistances, Dragon’s Descent does less damage and travels less distance. Overall, we don’t expect these changes will shake up how Dragon’s Descent is used, but we’re pretty sure it’s cooler now.

R - Dragon’s Descent

Active: Shyvana transforms into a dragon, gaining 150/250/350 Health and flying to target location. Enemies along her path take 150/250/350 (+0.7 ability power) magic damage and are knocked toward her target location.

Time will tell if we’re right, but the E and R changes look to be a big buff to Shyvana. While we want this update to be a net-power-up, internal testing showed us she didn’t need that much love (a kiss on the leg should be sufficient). Rather than hit the active elements of Shyvana’s success, we targeted mechanics we think she’ll still function without.

First, W - Burnout no longer leaves a flame trail in Dragon Form. Shyvana wants enemies in front of her so she can attack them, but Burnout asked her to stay in front of theminstead. Felt weird. So, Burnout now gets bigger as Dragon Form does, letting Shyvana focus on what’s in front of her.

Next up is Shyvana’s Passive - Fury of the Dragonborn. As work progressed, we noticed Shyvana was becoming unkillable in playtests. Dragonborn - a big ball of resistances - was an obvious lever to pull to reduce that tankiness. It got fairly sad to read as we whittled its numbers down, and we wondered if we could make it more interesting, rather than just weaker.

To be clear, in most cases, Dragonborn will be weaker than before. Shyvana gets much fewer resistances by default, and those resistances no longer scale with level. However, she can recoup some of the loss if she and her team secure dragons. This gives Shyvana - a champion frequently left to her own devices on top-lane island or the jungle farmhouse - a unique way to participate and celebrate in her team’s success.

With everything going on, it’s hard to nail down exactly where Shyvana will land. All said, we’re hoping she comes out stronger than before. If we miss the balance mark (in either direction) this update’s put us in a much better position to follow up.

Dive well, Shyvana."

Meddler hit the boards to comment they'll likely continue to work on this scope of champion changes

"It's likely we'll do more work along these lines, though scope of that work's going to vary quite a bit from champion to champion. How much detail we'll go into with more formal posts like that we're not sure yet, this is a bit of a test in that regard."

Wav3break also showed up to clarify they will be adding special casing for non-SR maps that have dragons:

"Quote:

What about ARAMS, fun modes like Poro king, Ascension,Nexus Siege and Twisted Treeline where we dont have dragons?

Didn't sneak in the special casing for 6.23, but I will be adding special cases for those maps ASAP."

"The passive change is intended to be a nerf to offset some of the power we added in other areas on her kit. We don't think her updated passive is the best it could be, but do believe that the change puts it in a better direction moving forward when compared to the old passive."

Also really affects her top lane ability with it stopping on champ hit.

Her human form is unchanged besides stopping on champions. It does hit her top lane in cases where she wants mark the full wave and now your opponent can block it. That being said, if they are consciously doing that, then they are also marking themselves for you to follow up on."

But what about Hecarim? This abomination has been terrorizing ranked for quite some time already and gave no cares about your previous attempt at nerfing him, only changed his build slightly. And now he is also a proud user of colossus that he can proc VERY reliably.

We'll do Courage of the Colossus nerfs first. After that we'll see whether Hecarim needs changes directly or not."

When asked about a potential champion update for Evelynn, Meddler noted:

"Quote:

Probably sometime in 2017. No real concrete plans right now, though, because the teams got their hands full with Warwick and Galio.

Yep. 2017 looks pretty plausible, got some other champs to do first though so no guarantees yet."

balance aside i think yall need a break man. the past few weeks been crazy content and balance being put out

Yep, for the US offices at least most people are off work for a couple of days.

In general though the Christmas time tends to be when we take time off in particular.

Most development's on hold for a bit there so it's a good time to go catch up with friends/family, especially when that means traveling to a different state or country."

This matches up with the patterns we've seen in previous years for Riot's holiday schedule! Don't forget 6.24 is set to be the last patch of the season and 6.23 live maintenance is a day earlier than usual.